This invention relates to sawhorses, scaffolds and trestles, and more particularly to a sawhorse that may be opened for use and folded to collapse for storage.
Sawhorses are used as racks or trestles to support construction materials and other objects. With their wide base, sawhorses provide a relatively stable support for a workpiece while being fairly portable. However, non-folding sawhorses require substantial space for storage and transportation.
Folding sawhorses therefore were created to solve the storage space problem and to allow for easier transportation. However, prior folding sawhorses had many shortcomings. Some prior folding sawhorses could not withstand sideways motion in the load they supported. This was particularly a problem with the type of folding sawhorse described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,658 to Banfield. The legs of this type of folding sawhorse that were positioned on a common side of the sawhorse were not in rigid contact with each other. The legs tended to pivot with respect to the upper central member of the sawhorse when the sawhorse was under load and therefore the sawhorse did not provide sufficient support when its load moved laterally with respect to the central supporting member.
Other folding sawhorses, such as the sawhorse described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,411 to Ottoson, provided significantly less vertical support than did non-folding sawhorses. The legs of these sawhorses tended to splay out under the pressure of applied weight because the sawhorse's opposing legs were not rigidly fixed to one another when the sawhorse was unfolded for use.
A folding sawhorse should readily unfold for use and fold up again for storage. Since most projects of the home owner are of short duration, if the sawhorse does not easily expand and collapse, it will be seldom used. Some folding sawhorses, such as the "IRON HORSE" manufactured by the Hirsh Company of Skokie, Ill. are both rigid and sturdy because their four legs are fixed relative to one another, but are difficult to unfold and fold.